"Something Strange Is Happening"
1."We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"
AnswerBilbo Baggins, to Gandalf the Grey, who was looking for an adventurer.
2. "You would have dropped him if a goblin had suddenly grabbed your leg from behind in the dark, tripped up your feet, and kicked you in the back!"
Answer Dori, to Gandalf, on losing Bilbo.
3. "A very good tale! The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder."
AnswerBeorn, to Gandalf, on hearing the tale of their encounter with the Wargs.
4. "No time now! You must follow me! We must all keep together and not risk getting separated. All of us must escape or none, and this is our last chance."
AnswerBilbo, to Balin, as he releases him from the Wood-elves' dungeon.
5. "Now come with me and taste the new wine that has just come in. I shall be hard at work clearing the cellars of the empty wood, so let us have a drink first to help the labour."
AnswerIn the Wood-elves' cave, the king's butler to the chief of the guards.
6. "To smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now, for hours on end--but not an apple!"
AnswerFíli, to Bilbo, after being released from a barrel used to escape from the Wood-elves.
7. "I am too fat for such fly-walks. I should turn dizzy and tread on my beard, and then you would be thirteen again. And the knotted ropes are too slender for my weight."
AnswerBombur, when the others wanted him to climb up to a higher camp on Lonely Mountain.
8. "Something strange is happening. The time has gone for the autumn wanderings; and these are birds that dwell always in the land; there are starlings and flocks of finches; and far off there are many carrion birds as if a battle were afoot!"
AnswerThorin, at seeing many birds wheeling around Lonely Mountain.
9. "Since such is your answer, I declare the Mountain besieged. You shall not depart from it, until you call on your side for a truce and a parley. We will bear no weapons against you, but we leave you to your gold. You may eat that, if you will!"
AnswerA banner-bearer from the camp of Esgaroth and the Wood-elves, to Thorin at his refusal to parley.
10. "There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
Answer Thorin, to Bilbo, just before Thorin died.